Yeah

Not exactly

This is wrong for two reasons:

1. They have been unable to search Americans as thoroughly as foreigners entering the country; this law changed that.

2. They have never been able to search your thoughts, or indeed your body without due cause, and there is an argument that a hard drive filled with private email, thoughts and writings are an extension of your mind.

Also, they have never been able to search a journalist's notes or private correspondence with confidential contacts, some of whom may be in the government, and that is now up for grabs too.

UK prices

We have to remove tax, then remove the income tax workers on our projects pay, then remove the benefits that we would expect some of those workers to claim, then, and only then, can we compare the prices from UK manufacturers to foreign ones.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the foreign product won't be better, which is whole different argument.

On the other hand...

We can now enact all those stupid laws that were never taken off the statute books with no fear of prosecution such as being able to kill a Scot for carrying a bow and arrow within the city walls of York on a Sunday, or arresting a woman for kissing a man with a moustache and a million others.

Atheists don't kill each other?

Are you kidding? We do it all the time, just indirectly. When I say have a smaller state and let the poor rely on charity of others I am indirectly asking to allow poor people to die on the streets. If those poor are socialist and atheist then they want state help yet I have killed them for having a different branch of atheism than me.

All of which makes the atheist tag redundant, I killed them because they were socialist and I was a libertarian.

Couple of points

A good article, but I'd like to mention a few things:

We are completely ignoring already produced CO2, admittedly a retrospective tax on countries that had industrial revolutions would be difficult. There has been enough CO2 to cause an expected 1.5C change over the next few decades even if we stopped all CO2 production now. This will cause damage to some regions, who pays for that?

If we are going to pay for the damage costs then we'll have to redistribute the taxes to those areas affected. As far as I can tell Copenhagen was more about transferring wealth to countries denied a fossil fuel industrial revolution rather than those that would require flood protection or food imports.

Another problem with the tax is the level to set it at. Since CO2 has a feedback effect it is incredibly important to estimate exactly how much CO2 would be produced at each tax rate. If this amount is slightly under then the damage caused will be much greater than the tax raised.

Yet another problem with the tax is that people might decide not to alter their behaviour regarding CO2 producing goods and cut back on other things. This could equally happen if we had an economic expansion (remember those?). The resulting CO2, while being paid for, would still cause the mass migrations, famines and floods that people are concerned about. While compensating those countries may be possible you can't compensate the dead.

Having said all that, the tax method is probably the best way to change people's behaviour.

The decrease in economic growth (and misallocation of resources) from legislated reductions in CO2 would cause plenty of death and suffering too - and that is never mentioned.

When is Animal Farm becoming reality?

EU-wide ID card can be used to travel without the hassle of a passport. You can also buy stuff with it. To keep tabs on all potential terrorists we need an EU-wide police force that can keep track of all movement and purchases of citizens within the UK. They also have basic knowledge of where you are going when you leave the EU and where you return from, plus some sharing arrangements with other countries to track your external movements.

So we have an EU-wide police force, run ostensibly by the EU parliament, answerable to no-one and superceding national police forces.

Indian IT

Money, Money, Money

Okay, this is coming out of my pocket at some point, but unless we start seriously suing these organisations for illegally depriving innocent people of their liberty then they'll keep doing it.

Start handing out 6 figure judgments against them. Make it come out of their operational (including wages!) budget. Make cops turn against cops for doing bad things to the public. Increased crime stats in an area because operational cash went to compensation? Tough, stop doing things that cause you to pay compensation - i.e. keep within the law you purport to uphold.

How can you tell...

The politician is derelict in her duty by not moderating what her son is doing and who he is chatting to online, but hoiw it the other user supposed to know what age the poster is?

Are there over 18 forums I can go to (not those ones, I'm already a member of those ones) so that I can flame whoever I like without fear, like I can pull any chick at an over-18's club without having to check her ID before dooing the doo (like Betty Boo)?